BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
Like I said, an unfair tax (rates), replaced with an unfair tax (Community Charge), replaced with an unfair tax (Council Tax).
Don't Pay UK
- Thread starter cookiemonster
- Start date
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Like I said, an unfair tax (rates), replaced with an unfair tax (Community Charge), replaced with an unfair tax (Council Tax).
All uphill
Active Member
BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
That is a big question!, which, I am not qualified to answer, beyond giving my own opinion.
Perhaps, local authority spending should be funded at a National Level (a proportion of it is now of course), but, then, a formula to distribute the cash, taking into account local circumstances (eg population size, development needs, etc)
If we are to stick with local funding of local authorities then...
My immediate thought is, taxation needs to be linked to ability to pay, so, some form of local income tax, levied on all adult individuals.
However, even I can see some flaws in that:
a) difficulty in collection
b) there will be some anomalies, ie people with little or no earned income, but with investment income (although, to be fair, they must be a small %ge of the population).
Basically, IMHO:
everyone should contribute
contribution should be linked to ability to pay
the rate of tax should be on a linear increasing scale, to avoid 'large" increases in taxation, for "small" increases in income
the above of course is only addressing personal local taxation, business should also contribute, after all, they reap the reward of infrastructure. In principle, taxation on profits seems the obvious way to go, but, we need some Politicians with a barn, to draft rules which avoid the nefarious practices of outfits like Amazon, Starbucks, to name but two.
theclaud
Reading around the chip
It's a massive wealth grab. If you've still got a direct debit, don't wait til October to cancel it.
never paid my utilities by direct debit.....they rip you off big style
matticus
Guru
Nice try claud, but I can't dislike a guy with this name:
"Last year, BP chief executive Bernard Looney described the energy market as "a cash machine"."
theclaud
Reading around the chip
Maybe you should work on that?
stowie
Active Member
If you want to get really angry watch the excellent series on BBC iplayer "Big oil vs the world". I would almost dismiss the actions of big oil companies as conspiracy theory if it wasn't highly documented and produced by an organisation that would definitely check sources before publishing! Although not directly related to this current crisis, it shows how big oil companies knew about climate change for decades, and instead of working to mitigate decided to use their wealth to fund misinformation which has fundamentally damaged our ability to respond to an existential global threat.
As you know, I am not a staunch leftie who wants everything nationalised. I believe that it is fair for investors to get rewarded for capital risk when the investment does well. But this is a million miles from what is happening at the moment which is, as you say, a massive wealth grab from a captive audience of consumers to executive and asset owning entities to the point that it is driving people into crippling poverty.
What is even worse is that all the mitigation this useless government is putting in place is simply using tax-payer money to help fund the oil companies bottom line. That is, not only are people being crippled by the bills they have to pay, but the same people are also funding it through taxation (or debt interest).
You only have to look at the massive (many billions of $) of share buybacks currently happening. All the arguments against a windfall tax around investment in green energy is shown to be BS when you look at the investment in green energy vs things like share buybacks which do nothing other than make shareholders and option owning execs richer. Big Oil companies will not be the people who move renewables forward in the same way that it was Tesla and not GM or Ford that drove the electric car revolution.
theclaud
Reading around the chip
I never completely trust anything in Comic Sans.
BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
Try it and see? The worst that can happen is that they disconnect you gas and/or electricity, and, I would expect there would be numerous communications, before that actually happened.
stephec
Regular
I was asking for a friend. 😊
fozy tornip
fozympotent
Why so, pray?
theclaud
Reading around the chip
Sorry, I realise that might not be the best advice for everyone. Indeed, the Don't Pay plan depends on timing - if you are going to cancel, I guess you might as well time it right and be part of the collective action. I've never paid by DD - I'm aware there's a discount (£2.50 per month on dual fuel from my supplier), but I regard it as more of a bribe - it's got to be worth more to them than they are conceding. Someone more across the numbers than I am might be able to figure out how nicely the suppliers are doing by sitting on customer credit balances from deliberately overestimated DDs. I get my bills mid-month for some reason and quite enjoy the fortnight of ignoring calls from the supplier until payday.
